unraveling

“It just didn’t seem like she wanted to share a life with him is all…”

This part. The conclusion. Lacking in so many details left out of a half-lived story, is what keeps me up at night. that seam you keep thumbing over in your favorite jacket pocket that you wish you could just cut out but you know you run the risk of carelessly undoing the stitching. it’s a flaw. you know it’s a flaw. but you can’t part with it, because it’s a part of a bigger, greater, whole.

finances. not sharing incomes. i get it, people get funny when it comes to money. but like all other things in a relationship, you eventually learn to become comfortable with it right? like farting around one another, or confiding in one another about that one odd cousin you just wish would learn some table manners. but if im perfectly fine keeping what’s mine as my own, and yours as yours, & not asking for loans from the bank of You, and vice versa.. and we take turns buying the groceries and splitting the electricity bill.. how is that not sharing?

the more scary, resounding truth for me, is not that the argument is about finances. but more, that two people, who are “ready” to spend their life together, can still have such disjointed views on what it means to “share a life together.” people go through the motions, sharing what they believe, in checking off the boxes of what they are, aren’t, try to be, don’t want to be, but when it comes down to that grand scale of weighing out who’s giving, who’s taking, who’s getting enough, and who still needs more … can someone really be in the wrong?

i have this thing about support and time. so the other stuff, the shared finances, the romantic gestures, the monetary gifts, are all minimal to me because i need someone to be my rock– sometimes when it’s not the most convenient for them. maybe its a barter system in my head. i forgo-ed those, so let me have this. maybe its unfair. but ive never been in a relationship before, where what i gave in exchange for needing my other half in that way, wasn’t enough.. or unfair.

until this, i’ve never had to reason out why what i know to be a true way to win my heart, is important.. and why it should stay. or convince someone that i know what’s best for me, & no it doesn’t need more understanding on my part, or flexibility, when majority of the time i’m ok playing backseat to your other plans, your future, being your cheerleader to your successes & your ear to your failures (although there are few. see how much i look up to you?) i take a lot of energy, & a lot of talking myself out of my corners of defeat & off ledges of what i make out to be insurmountable fears.. but ive never been afraid of disclaiming that early on, so that anyone who doesn’t have the patience, or tolerance, can walk away risk free.

Maya Angelou once told Oprah, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”

i feel…
like.
sometimes we stand on uneven playing fields.
& you see that we are
but i dont.
& you’re telling me to share,
play fair,
do it like you do.
& for the life of me,
i cant seem to get the coordination,
the gravity of the situation,
to get me to you.